Sandy : Lessons From The Wake Of The Storm

Disaster and Preparedness: How Well Are We Doing?Superstorm Sandy has been a devastating experience for many, and will continue to be so for a long time to come. Much of the damage will take weeks or months to repair, and some may take years. A myriad long battles with insurance companies are a given, as the available funds are unlikely to match the damage and there will be many arguments as to what is covered. The impacts are widespread, but unevenly distributed, as the repairs will be. Like Katrina before it, Sandy will be a defining event in the lives of many people.

Sandy illustrates a number of important points – how fundamentally dependent modern society is on centralised life-support networks, how interconnected different dependencies are, how crucial the role of energy really is, how disruption in one system can cascade into impacts in many others, and how unprepared people typically are to withstand even relatively short disruptions of essential services. Sandy provides a very useful case study in what we can do to prepare for challenging times, whether those occur due to hurricanes, ice-storms, earthquakes, financial collapse or other possible eventualities. Continue reading “Sandy : Lessons From The Wake Of The Storm”